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“You see, Doctor, God didn't kill that little girl.
Fate didn't butcher her and destiny didn't feed her to those
dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn't
seem to mind. From then on I knew... God doesn't make the
world this way. We do.”-Rorschach ***
Being a hero is a slippery slope. At what point does
the hero become a villain and when that does happen does
the hero realize it? Vigilantes or victims the Watchmen
save humanity from itself winning wars for us, doing the
dirty deeds that humanity doesn’t want to do. So when one
of their own named the Comedian(trust me, he isn’t funny
brilliantly played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan)becomes a murder
statistic Rorschach (Jackie Earl Haley)one of the few remaining
members of the Watchmen fighting crime after a law is passed
outlawing their vigilante behavior believes there is a conspiracy
to wipe them all out. He approaches retired superhero Nite
Owl II aka Dan (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre II aka Jupiter
(Malin Akerman), Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) and voicing
his concern and suggesting that they need to go into action.
Outside of his paranoia Rorschach like The Comedian , Manhattan
has lost much of his humanity allowing his alter ego to
consume his real identity. On this alternate Earth Richard
Nixon has started his third term as President, we’ve won
(courtesy of the Watchmen) the Vietnam War but tensions
are continuing to escalate between Cold War rivals the U.S.
and the U.S.S.R. ***
Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) inspires Dan to resume
his activities as Nite Owl as he and other members of the
Watchmen begin to see the same menacing shadows that drives
Rorschach’s paranoia even effecting the philantrophist/millionaire/genius
Adrian Veidt formerly known as the superhero Ozymandias
(Matthew Goode). Dr. Manhattan who due to an accident in
his lab is no longer human and can see the past, present
& future at the same time as well manipulate energy and
matter finds it impossible to see who is behind the attack
on The Comedian. ***
Based on the popular graphic novel by writer Alan Moore
and illustrator Dave Gibbons “Watchmen” revolutionized and
helped give birth to the graphic novel as an art form. Featuring
a complex narrative and characters, “Watchmen” managed to
be both politically astute and morally complex. There had
been hints of this before in some of the Marvel comic books
and even D.C.’s “Batman” but “Watchmen” presented our heroes
as flawed and sometimes morally corrupt individuals. The
massive, complex storyline with a rich subplot and subtext
the film defied adaptation into a two hour movie. Moore
after the debacle of “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”,
unhappy with the adaptations of “From Hell” and “V for Vigilante”
refused to accept a credit as the author of “Watchmen”.
The film adaptation for “Watchmen” became a revolving door
with multiple directors and writers attached. The film looked
like it might never happen and then director Zack Snyder
(“Dawn of the Dead”) had a major success with his adaptation
of Frank Miller’s graphic novel “300”. Snyder working with
writers Alex Tse and David Hayter (“X2”, “The Scorpion King”)
abandoned the earlier screenplays which strayed further
and further away from the source graphic novel. Although
there were some differences between the graphic novel and
the film, the core story remained the same. ***
“Watchmen” didn’t become the massive super success
that everyone had hoped failing to match “The Dark Knight”-like
box office numbers that Warner had hoped. It’s still an
amazing achievement. Moore has sworn he won’t watch it because
he’s been so disappointed with the other films made of his
work and he just didn’t see the point. That’s too bad because
even though “Watchmen” is flawed, it’s an amazing looking
and sounding film that achieves its goals for the most part.
Box office success doesn’t guarantee that a film is “great”
or even “good”. “Watchmen” followed in the crushing wake
of a series of outstanding, darker hued superhero movies
such as “Batman Begins”, “The X-Men” and even “Spider-Man”
which balanced out its darkness with lighter humor. These
films created a high standard for any film following much
less one that had such a troubled production history. Even
when “Watchman” fails to capture the element that made Moore’s
original story so riveting, Snyder ploughs right through
that failure refusing to recognize it or linger on it focusing
on what the film IS doing well instead. That’s the secret
strength of “Watchmen” embracing and ignoring the source
material at the same time. ***
This edition of “Watchmen” includes roughly a half
hour of additional footage. Usually when you see “Director’s
Cut” appended to the title of a movie it means that the
film has been expanded with little bits and pieces that
the director cut to appease the ratings board, because of
pacing or because something didn’t work. In the case of
“Watchmen” on Blu-ray all three seem to be the case but
adding them back in doesn’t injury the film. It’s still
an entertaining, adult meditation on how power, powerlessness
and ideology changes people. In the case of Dr. Manhattan
power distances him further and further from humanity. Our
humanity acts just as gravity does—it binds us to each other
morally and ethically. Remove it and you either become a
spectator who will do nothing or, as in the case of one
other character, it distances you so much that you can charge
a terrible price for the radical change that you see as
necessary believing you know the consequences but never
grasping the depth of terrible pain you’re inflicting fooling
yourself all the while that what you do for humanity will
be worth it. ***
Be aware also that Warner has already announced a “Complete
Experience” edition that will be appearing in December.
I suspect that will include the theatrical cut as well as
this “Director’s Cut”, these special features as well as
others. Fans however should consider buying this edition
of “Watchmen” because quite frankly the “Director’s Cut”
is (with one curious exception)superior to the original
theatrical version and the extras are quite good. ***
Losing their status as superheroes alters each one
of these deftly drawn characters in radically different
ways. Some of them rediscover their humanity but fall into
a trap of timidity without their alter egos while others
fall further into a well of paranoia robbing them of the
ability to see that justice and compassion are measured
equally on the scale the lady with the blindfold is wearing.
Snyder does take too many detours (although they are brief
detours) into graphic nudity which will put many people
off from a film that asks a lot of difficult questions coming
back with painful answers. The additions work for the most
part whether it be from giving us a deeper understanding
of a character because of one or two lines of dialogue or
the murder of a character one of the main heroes cares about.
In fact it is the latter restored scene that works the least
in “Watchmen”. While it does add resonance and gives us
a deeper understanding of how the rage is awakened in one
major character, the performances/dialogue by the bit players
are bad. It’s a minor blip in the grander scheme of things.
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Image & Sound: “Watchmen” arrives sporting a truly stunning
looking transfer for Blu-ray. Like the film itself it isn’t
flawless but those flaws are certainly forgivable; there
are some mild artifacts particularly noticeable in some
scenes with the CGI created Dr. Manhattan but, on the whole,
the film looks beautiful. Detail is remarkably sharp and
the image is crisp with minimal edge enhancement. Digital
grain management gets careful usage avoiding the overkill
that marked “Dark City” for example retaining as much of
the film-like “look” as possible. ***
Using the color scheme that Moore and Gibbons decided
on for the film version of “Watchmen” (focusing on colors
outside of the primary color scheme that typifies most comic
books and graphic novels) works well for the film giving
it a distinct look and flavor. Snyder favors a “looks” for
the film whether it be for the darker flashbacks involving
Rorschach or the saturated look for the brief origin story
for Dr. Manhattan. It’s a nice touch that gives flavor to
those flashbacks giving us an idea of the attitude of each
character and how it alters their outlook in the present.
***
Audio sounds strong with a terrific 5.1 bold lossless
soundtrack. It works in the films favor particularly when
Snyder uses songs from various eras to typify what we see—it
gives us something to relate to from our world that contrasts
nicely with the alternate history of “Watchmen”. Dialogue
is always clear and there are subtitles in English. ---
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